January | 2016 | johnandbrena

Vacationing in Papua New Guinea leaves you feeling like you need a vacation to recover from your vacation!! But, in spite of the heat and humidity and incredibly bumpy 7 hour drive to and from the coastal city of Madang, we had a good time with our friends, the Nachtigals. We enjoyed swimming at nice beaches, eating out and even watching some television.

The whole time brought back so many memories for me (Brena) of our years in the Solomon Islands, especially when we motor canoed out to a little island to swim. It was just like the beach we paddled across to every Saturday to spend time as a family. So it was a nostalgic time for me. In a way I felt like I was “home”.

And thankfully God kept us safe on our travels: a hold-up happened to a bus just ahead of us and a bridge that we passed over collapsed later that same day!

Some items for prayer:

John is preparing for his trip to the Solomons in late February. He will be working with the Fataleka team on the final read-through of the New Testament. There are still some issues with a couple members of the team that need to be resolved or they won’t be allowed to participate in the final read-through so please pray for them.
Joey and Kairu are helping out with a VBS program for the PNG kids that live around here. Pray that many kids will come to know Jesus this week.
Next week the boys start the last half of the school year. These next few months are also the time when Joey and Kairu will decide on the schools they will attend next year.
Grant has a very full load of math and engineering classes at John Brown University.

The Nachtigal family and us

Kairu, being a highlands boy, thoroughly enjoyed his time in the ocean

We had the privilege one day of driving up the mountain to revisit POC (the Pacific Orientation Course) where John and I (and baby Grant) spent 3 months in 1997 learning the ropes of life in the Pacific. These are the dorms.